Internet-based systems are available that encourage individuals to network with others. Commonly used social networking systems include Facebook, MySpace, Linked-In, and the like. One problem with all of such systems is that they are controlled by the individual that sets up the account with the social networking service provider. Despite the opportunities afforded by such systems for developing business relationships, many businesses discourage or prohibit accessing social networking sites from company computers. The lack of control over these social networking sites is a serious detriment to their use in business. For example, social networking sites may provide a channel for the disclosure of confidential information. Employment services have been known to use such networking sites to hire away employees. Employees may post damaging content on a networking site that may present a risk to company or brand reputation. Employees do not generally use their social networking site as a reference on business cards or in e-mails due to the lack of professionalism denoted by using such networking sites in connection with business endeavors.
Businesses generally derive no benefit from the use of social networking or business networking sites as they currently exist. There is no practical way to include advertising or a public relations piece on an employee's networking site. There is also no way to use networking sites to track employee communications or to control content of communications sent by employees. Current networking sites do not facilitate development of work groups or teams and do not provide an efficient way to share content directly with other members of a team. Social networking sites also do not allow an employer to access employee networking sites to determine the special skills, expertise, and knowledge of its employees. Networking sites also fail to provide any mechanism for a business or other entity to prohibit objectionable content from being posted on employee websites. In addition, networking sites do not provide an efficient way for a business or other entity to obtain feedback relative to the number of sites visited, the extent of use of the site, or surveying customers as to their experience on visiting a site.
Company websites are generally impersonal in tone and context in that they fail to convey information that emphasizes the talents and contributions made by individuals who are employed by the company. Websites maintained by companies also fail to reflect the specific interests of individuals within the enterprise that may be important to persons searching the company website. For example, if a company is interested in working with another company that has highly skilled engineers who also speak a particular language, there would be no way to learn this information by simply visiting a company's website.
Company websites are expensive to create and maintain. Most companies retain an outside consultant or contractor to develop a website. Websites become out-of-date soon after they are established especially if the websites include specific information relating to employees and specific projects and accomplishments of the organization. Development of websites generally requires extensive programming skills to code the website content. In addition, most currently available websites do not facilitate creation of secure or hidden pages or provide an easy-to-use mechanism for limiting distribution of information contained on selected pages or portions of the website.
Many businesses have intranets that are intended to facilitate communication within an organization that are not normally accessible from outside of an organization. An employee may be able to add content or provide profiles for some intranet systems. However, it is difficult to motivate employees to populate their personnel profiles on the internet. This handicaps the company from providing a knowledge map of an organization that may be used by human resources professionals or management to select employees for a particular assignment or job based upon their experience and accomplishments.
Current intranets do not provide a mechanism for a business or other entity to reward employees who are effective in generating traffic to an enterprise website.
These and other problems and shortcomings associated with prior art social networking systems, websites, and intranets are addressed by the system and method described in the following detailed description.